Re: Greater Toronto Regional
 

I think they meant that we won Rookie All Star at Rochester, Highest Rookie Seed at Cleveland, and now Rookie Inspiration at Toronto.

But Waldo's award was well deserved, what a great team!! I hope you girls are coming to nationals so we can cheer together again! Congrats!!!

And thanks again so much to teams 1114 & 1305 for selecting us, we hope we did you proud!!! How much fun was that?!?!

Karthik, thanks so much for all the support!! :D 229, thanks for coming to cheer us on! :)

I guess I am a bit in shock still and dont know how all of this has happened... except that our team put in a ton of hard work, and with a little bit of luck, and some amazing alliance partners, this was an amazing regional.

Thanks for all the congrats from the teams!

And I do have one huge thanks left... thanks to all my kids for all of your hard work, long hours, endless scouting, tireless chearing, amazing energy, awesome driving, great coaching, and what a great robot! You guys are my inspiration! You are the reason I can stay up countless hours to finish up scouting or paperwork, or robot stuff. I dont know how we keep doing it, but we do. You guys deserve it all, you are truely an amazing rookie team :) (Or as Ed says, perhaps we really arent rookies anymore!) And lastly, I have to say thanks for all the appreciation you guys have shown. Never could I have expected to be so important to the team. You guys really made the mentors(and especially me) feel special, and we are so happy for all of you. I love you guys!!!

Re: Greater Toronto Regional
 

Congrats to the winning alliance.

1114 deserved this, they had an amazing robot(s) ,great drivers and a brilliant coach. The triplet project was exceedingly successful.

1305 has been great all along, and thier robot is simply amazing.

1511 are an amzing rookie team, great job guys!

Also congrats to the finalists you gave us, the crowd, an amazing show.

See you at nationals :)

Weekend Recap
 

What an amazing weekend we had in Toronto. The event went off without a hitch, and the Hershey Center was rockin' all weekend long. For the sake of brevity and organization, my thanks and congrats are in this thread.

Despite teams only playing 8 matches, no team was able to finish the qualifying rounds with an undefeated record. Team 1114 finished on top of the pile because of average RP of 18.37. This was definitely not the same Team 1114 that was in Waterloo. All three NiagaraFIRST.org teams made huge strides, including an autonomous mode which gave them 2/3 of the home row after 4 seconds. Teams 1305, 1241 and 48 all finished with one loss as well.

After the alliance selection process, it was evident that we'd be in for some great eliminations round. Team 1114 picked 1305, and then picked up the steal of the day by getting Team 1511 in the second round. Teams 1241, 772 and 1006 formed an all GM alliance. Team 48, who also improved greatly from their earlier regionals picked 1503 (one of the triplets) and 84. The fifth seeded alliance was also very strong, Teams 703, 1596 and 1680.

With all these strong capping alliances, it was clear that the elimination rounds were going to exciting. The tone was set early when the top seeded alliance (1114, 1305, 1511) put up a score of 128. There was a big upset in QF3, as teams 1241, 772 and 1006 went out in two straight. They actually had out scored their opponents by 39 points in match 1, but took 40 points in penalties... ouch.

When the dust settled from the semis, we were left with a final which was bound to be exciting. On one side you had 1114, 1305 & 1511 and on the other side it was 48, 1503 & 84. Consider these storylines...

- 1114 and 48 were finalists together, one year ago in Toronto. They came within a whisker of winning the whole thing. The teams are best of friends, but have had some very tough battles in the past.

- Two NiagaraFIRST.org robots battling it out in the finals. It was definitely weird seeing double out there. Having the same robot on both alliances, is a unique feeling. These two teams worked hand in hand all season long, which made strategizing for the finals quite unique.

The first match of the finals went to the 1114, 1503 & 1680 alliance, 40-31. This set the stage for one of the most exciting matches I've seen in FIRST. In autonomous mode, 1114 knocks one hanging tetra, and caps home center , while 1511 knocks their hanging tetra. On the other side, 1503 who has the same routine as 1114, missing the home center, and ends up containing the tet. This turns out to be crucial. Team 48 comes out hand plays some tough zone defense, which gets in the way of both 1114 and 1305. 1511 picks up the slack and does a lot of capping for the alliance. With about 10 seconds left the 48 alliance has control of the center row. 1114 gets to the autoloader at the 5 second mark. They somehow manage to pick up a tetra, turn and cap the side goal as time expires. Everyone in the arena realizes that that last cap is going to make it very close. The score comes in.... 32-31 for the number one seeds!

It was absolutely amazing. The perfect way to end an awesomely exciting weekend.

Re: Greater Toronto Regional
 

congrats to the winners, finalists and all the other teams that made it to the elimination rounds! it was amazing how much the 3 GM triplet teams improved. you guys capped so much faster than at waterloo. it was insane.

too bad our team wasn't chosen, it definitely looked bad in our last game when we had a short circuit. our robot wasnt experiencing any real difficulties, but that looked bad for sure. also our second game was lost carelessly because of loading box penalties, but hey...that happened to the 772 alliance as well. despite all that, the regional was great! congrats to all the teams and especially all the rookies for doing so well!

P.S. we were thinking any of the alliances that needed a bot to take down a couple good cappers for them could have chosen us. =\

Re: Greater Toronto Regional
 

Kelvin,

I too was surprised that you weren't chosen for the eliminations. Your team constantly showed great defensive prowess by using your arm to block teams trying to cap. Congratulations on a great rookie season.

Re: Weekend Recap
 

You can say that again...I was very surprised, as I had them quite high on my list.

Also, to team 1558, I'm very sorry I couldn't be there to help you out on Saturday, but I unexpectedly got sick.

Simbotics: as soon as I saw you guys on Friday, I knew that you were back and ready to do something special. I'm really happy for you, and I regret that we were never able to work together this year.

1305: What can I say...great season, wow. And you'll get one of those bibs someday soon!

Re: Greater Toronto Regional
 

thanks, Karthik. im sure we would have been chosen if our robot worked in the last match. shutting down 1114 would have made us look good :P. oh well. there were many things we could have improved on, and marketing ourselves was one. and we couldn't have done so well without you and woburn supporting us. =)

adam, its ok. unexpected things always happen. it was great seeing you with an accident t-shirt! thanks

Re: Greater Toronto Regional
 

Congrats to the Winners!
Our scouting reports had you guys on top and practically unbeatable. The last match was incredibly tense with 48 out to block any scoring attempts.
Just a personal footnote; I didn't understand how we were overlooked during alliance selections. I thought with a decent 20th position and with a higher RP than most would have been a good choice. :confused:
Guess there's always next year!


Gerbs, Team 1620

Re: Greater Toronto Regional
 

Congrats to the winners! I had an awesome time and was thoroughly impressed by the high level of play by many robots at the event, especially 1114 and their automated capping and autoloading routines.

Although both of our alliance partners seemed to have devastating problems during quarterfinals, that didn't stop us from making our mark. Thanks to the judges for the GM Industrial Design Award (that's 3 outta 4 years!) We'll be back next year.

See everyone at Championships.

Re: Greater Toronto Regional
 

The Greater Toronto Regional was a blast. We at team 1404 would like to congratulate the winners, all of which were fantastic robots (we played with 1114 and against them in two consecutive matches, and were able to see their power from both sides).

Despite the fact that we missed the playoffs (our final game, lost by one point, and that dropped us from 7th to 21st, from being a picking team to out of it altogether [although, this is nothing compared to what the blue alliance must have felt in the final]), we still enjoyed the whole event. This was my first and last time at the event as a team member, as I graduate this year. Hopefully, I'll be back in some sort of mentoring role next year with 1404.

Good work all, and I hope to be there next year.

Re: Greater Toronto Regional
 

The GTR was amazing. Thank you to 1114 for picking us for an alliance we worked well together and 1511 you guys were great. I knew when I saw 1114 on Thursday that they would do great in the competition and you guys did. We made a great alliance and maybe we could do it again in Atlanta. I would also like to thank everyone that made this regional possible.

Hafize

Re: Greater Toronto Regional
 

A well deserved win for 1114, 1305 and 1511, congratz!

As for Karthik, you rock man! I've never seen an MC with so much energy.

Thanks to 781 for the gearbox when ours broke.

As dissapointing as our quarterfinal matches were, it was still a kick a** regional and there is no other regional in which I would rather be.

I certainly hope that out team will come back next year, though I will be a college mentor then...

This regional has always been the best regional and I want to thank EVERYONE involved for making my FIRST experience the best I ever had. This was my last FIRST regional as a student, and what a ride it has been!

Thank you and see you all at Atlanta!

Re: Greater Toronto Regional - Scoring Data anyone?
 

Thanks to all for a fantastic event!

Does anyone (ideally, the official scoring-data-entry folks) have a copy of the match details for the GTA Regional... we wanted to run some statistical analysis, but our data was incomplete/inaccurate... (something including the penalties...? the data posted on the first site does not include this...)

Thanks!

Congratulations to all teams, and thanks again for a wonderful time!

David Hoare
team 1419 - Courtice

Re: Greater Toronto Regional
 

does anybody of a pic or video of Steve getting capped when a tetra flew off a robot?

Re: Greater Toronto Regional
 

i heard about a judge getting capped! didn't know that judge was really the announcer steve! if anybody has that video/picture, can they send it to me as well?